(I've now taken to adapting lyrics of songs into post titles, by replacing a word with my name. It's neither clever, nor original, and yet, I will continue to do so. Oh, the original line is "Random lost souls have asked me, what's the future of rock & roll. I say "I don't know, does it matter? This and that scene sound all the same to me, neither much worse, nor much better." Great song- "Worlds Apart" by Trail of Dead)

Anyway. I figured it was about time for one of those "What the hell have all of us been doing?" posts. I like to share, and I like to know, because I am nosy.

This has been a pretty bad week, to be perfectly honest. It's one of those weeks where it starts kind of innocently enough, but something small goes wrong, and then something worse, and then something worse, until, before you know it, the whole week sucks, and you're thinking "Holy crap, this blows."

Skipping the mildly annoying things to the big things- my twenty-fourtwenty-three year-old cousin died of a drug over-dose on Tuesday. Which is crazy. I mean... twenty-four. Granted, it was a drug over-dose, which I can totally understand makes it hard for people who didn't know him to necessarily be *super* sympathetic towards him, even if they feel bad for me or my family. And I'm not about to make excuses for it. I think it's a terrible waste. My cousin was a good kid, and I think it's a damn shame that he got involved in drugs and that it killed him. I can only imagine how hard this must be for my other cousin (his sister) or my aunt and uncle. I mean, he was 23, and this was their child. Their only son. I don't know. My mother put it pretty succinctly- "This sucks."

So, yeah. This has me down. Honestly, we weren't even that close these days, but he was my cousin, and we used to be very close, and it's just such a reality check when someone that young dies. I'm still kind of in shock about it- I mean, I played cards with the kid just a couple months ago. We laughed it up, had a drink, and played Rummy.

So. Yeah. That definitely sucks.

For all the bad, though, there's little bits of light shining through. Potentially.

I went on a date on Sunday with a girl I used to know in high-school. I think I might have mentioned that on here already. I don't remember. Anyway, I think that the date went well- we went for sushi and talked, and then, after dinner, she asked me to go for a walk with her. So, we walked around town for about a half hour, 45 minutes. Then I took her home, and we chatted for a few minutes at the door, and I told her I had a nice time, and that we should do it again sometime. She e-mailed me a couple times on Monday, but I haven't heard back from her since then. I assume that it's because she's busy, or because she wants me to call her (which I will be doing today). I'm excited/nervous about that, but at least it was a nice date, regardless of anything else.

In the area of media entertainment: Watched "Freeze Frame" last weekend. It was pretty good. Borrowed some from movies like Pi, but that's not really a bad thing, and it brings enough of its own stuff to the table to keep it interesting. A couple of weak performances by the supporting cast, and some minor problems with the climax (mostly, they kind of lose control of the story as twist piles upon twist. The manage to salvage it, but there's definitely a moment where you're thinking "Wait... what?") keep it from really soaring, but it's definitely an interesting movie, and I feel safe suggesting it to anyone on here. Some pretty neat visuals and an interesting concept make it more than worth watching, anyway.

Also, Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy = Awesome.If you haven't played Lego Star Wars, and you like video games... get on it! It's not particularly hard, but it's tremendous fun, and there are secrets and bonuses to be found all over the place. It's pretty simple- you have between 2 and 6 characters on the screen at once, and you're trying to get from point A to point B while accomplishing some set tasks- kill a certain enemy, or find a certain object kind of things. You might have to build a bridge to get to a lever to open a door to the Falcon, for example. Characters belong to different classes, and each class has a skill unique to it. It's kind of a like a faster paced, 3d version of Lost Vikings. Only, Star Wars. Very cool.

I certainly don't have less sympathy because your cousin did drugs. Being a drug user doesn't necessarily make you a horrible person. My brother was doing drugs - hard drugs too - for a while. But he was basically still the same person.

It's such a tragedy that your cousin died as a result of the same stupid mistake millions of people make all the time. He certainly wasn't making smart choices, but he didn't deserve to die as a result of those choices.

I agree, though life can apparently be quite unforgiving when it comes to mistakes. Still, we all make them. Most of us are fortunate enough when it comes to these mistakes though, even if it may not seem so at the time... so yeah, dead at 23 sucks and I can see that putting you in a foul mood.

I'll be travelling this weekend. Again. At least it's not a wedding this time. Going up the mountains. Normally, I like getting away, but this will be something like the 5th weekend in a row that I've been travelling. I do get a week off next week, then another wedding the week after that. Ungh.

Oh, and that's the last wedding too. Great. But then I'm off to Boston for a usability conference. That should actually be a lot of fun, but again with the travelling. At least I don't have to drive for that one. But then, that means I have to fly.

So I should be getting back from the conference on Thursday night. That Friday, we have the company's ("not an official event") anual dive bar crawl in my little town. Again fun, but I have a feeling I'm going to be so exhausted by then that I'll just pass out and not wake up until Monday morning...

Yesterday, when I got to work, I realized that it was about the most beautiful day I've seen all year. The air was cool... crisp. I could just see my breath, and the sky was a bright blue, with a fair number of those beautiful, white fluffy clouds that you look at and see shapes in. Everything smelled wonderful- it was that first day where I really felt like "Man, fall is here." I stood there and took it in, and it was like waking up. I love fall. Fall always feels like the start of new things, to me.

Yesterday afternoon, I got a message from an old friend. We'd been discussing the possibility of doing some kind of art collaboration, and we decided yesterday to go for it. I'm excited, and looking forward to it.

Yesterday evening, I called the girl, but got her VM. I left a message saying "I was just calling to say 'hi' and see how you're doing this week, and to see if you're busy next week. In particular, I was wondering if you're busy next Friday. The School of Music is having a performance I was thinking about going to, and I thought you might be interested in going with me. Anyway, talk to you later." I haven't heard from her since Monday, so I'm definitely hitting that apprehensive phase. I figure she's probably just really busy, but we went from 2-4 e-mails a piece, every day, to none. Kind of a jump. Still, we'll see.

Glad to hear that the weddings are coming to an end, by the way. You've been going to too many weddings. It makes me uncomfortable. =P

I'm definitely looking forward to having a weekend where I can finally relax and not have *something* pressing going on. Maybe next weekend? Who knows?